Kasia Zieminska has just submitted her PhD thesis “Anatomical variation in twig wood across Australian angiosperms”. Kasia’s PhD was supervised by Mark Westoby (Comparative Ecology Group) and Ian Wright. Congratulations Kasia!
Stem cross-section of Daviesia latifolia (the “hop bitter-pea”; Fabaceae). Image: Kasia Zieminska
Cerrado: The Tropical Savannas of Brazil
I’ve just returned from my fieldwork in the beautiful Cerrado of Brazil! As part of my PhD project, I’m comparing the physiological traits of mistletoes from both the Brazilian and Australian savanna. Savannas are particularly conducive to parasitic plants, providing an open vegetation-type with little competition for sunlight, a large range of potential host species and high abundance of frugivorous birds as potential dispersal agents.
Seedling of the mistletoe Phthirusa ovata germinating on a potential host
I’m comparing the leaf functional traits of mistletoes and their hosts, e.g. specific leaf area, gas exchange measurements, leaf nutrient concentration and leaf lifespan; herbivory rates, and investments in chemical defence. The upcoming results will be important to answer a range of questions about how parasitic plants use their resources, and to test hypotheses about how “leaf economics” differ between these parasites and their hosts.
Measuring leaf lifespan of Psittacanthus robustus
NEW!! We’ve just advertised a 3.5 year MQRES PhD scholarship associated with the ARC Discovery Project “Scaling functional traits to whole-plant growth”. In this project we’re quantifying the role of traits and biomass allometries in generating differences among species in their growth rates — across life history stages, and in a range of Australian forest types. This scholarship is open to both domestic and (exceptionally qualified) international applicants.
Please note: to be eligible for an MQRES scholarship international applicants must have a track record of outstanding academic excellence, holding a MSc (research) with high academic grades, and having one or more peer-reviewed publications in a clearly related field of research.
Closing date is 7th April 2013. More details here (see scholarship reference #2012068).
Last weeks Saskia started a new decomposition experiment on the bark of 11 abundant NSW tree species. Let there be much rotting!
Rachael Gallagher (http://rachaelgallagher.com/) has been awarded a prestigious Macquarie University Research Fellowship, and will be joining the Wright lab from mid-2013. Rachael will be working towards building a new “functional biogeographic” understanding of the Australian flora by bringing together classical biogeography, functional trait data and ecological genomics!
In November 2012 we hosted Peter van Bodegom (Vrije University, Amstrerdam), who was funded via a COST-TERRABITES Short Term Scientific Mission. During the week we worked towards coordinating trait-flammability-decomposition research being undertaken at VUA and at MQ, and on a roadmap for incorporating fire-related plant traits in Dynamic Global Vegetation Models to better represent and predict fire-induced disturbances. Peter also gave a Departmental seminar on “Quantitative trait analyses to understand and predict ecosystem functions”. Happily, we also spent some time in the field at Kuring-gai Chase National park, poking around in the natural litter beds…
We have two new postdocs in our group, Allyson Eller (PhD 2009 Cornell; postdoc 2010-12 U Colorado/NOAA) and Vincent Maire (PhD 2009 INRA-UREP/MPI-Jena/Clermont-Ferrand; postdoc 2010-12 INRA-UREP, Clermont-Ferrand). Welcome Allyson and Vincent – we’re looking forward to many fruitful collaborations!
Kerrie Sendall has just submitted her PhD thesis “Size-related variation in physiology, carbon gain, and growth of trees in deciduous and evergreen forests”. Kerrie has been a cotutelle student, co-enrolled at Macquarie University and U. Minnesota. Kerrie’s supervisors are Peter Reich (U Minn), Chris Lusk (U. Waikato, NZ), and Ian Wright (Macquarie U.). Congratulations Kerrie!
Wang Han (Biosphere & Climate Dynamics group) has just submitted her PhD thesis “Modelling Vegetation Changes In China”. Wang Han is a cotutelle student, co-enrolled at Macquarie University and the Chinese Academy of Science. Congratulations Wang Han!!
Each year Macquarie holds an Open Day, where the university opens its doors to prospective students, families and anyone interested in looking around the uni. It is a day to explore what courses you can study, but also to see what facilities the university has, a bit about their research and have some fun. The Biology Department usually puts on a good show. This year there was free fairy floss made by students in lab coats and safety glasses, face painting and a live animal show where you could touch a tawny frogmouth, an olive python and a sleepy lizard.
I put up a display about Scribbly Gums: icons of the Australian Bush. It is easy to recognise the extraordinary scribbles on some smooth-barked Eucalyptus or gum trees, but it is hard to resist tracing them with your finger or trying to decipher the scribbles! They frequently feature in Australian literature (such as May Gibbs’ Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, Patrick White’s The Tree of Man and Judith Wright’s Scribbly Gum) and place names (there’s a Scribbly street, place, circuit, crescent, close, square, road and drive in Australia). But what makes the scribbles?
Scribbles are burrows made by the larvae (grubs) of the scribbly gum moths as they eat the wood just under the bark[1]. By the time the bark has been shed and the scribbles are exposed, the larvae is gone – it has pupated at the base of the tree and metamorphosed into a moth. A scribbly gum moth was described in 1939 and named Ogmograptis scribula[2]. The wingspan of the moth is only 8 mm across!
Although scribbles occur on over 20 species of Eucalypts[3], for many years there was only one species described. In 2007 I published measurements of scribbles showing that the size and shape of the scribbles differed between eucalypt species[4]. Together with Ted Edwards, we suggested that there was more than the single species of moth described – in fact there could be a different moth for each eucalypt species. More recently scientists from CSIRO caught larvae and moths from many eucalypt hosts and have identified several new species, with their findings due to be published later this year[5].
– Julia Cooke
Scribbly display: information about scribbles in science and literature.
So many scribbles! Mines of Ogmograptis sp. larvae on Eucalyptus haemastoma in Ku-ring-gai National Park.
References: [1] Nielsen ES & Common IFB. 1991. Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). In: The Insects of Australia (ed. J Naumann), pp. 817–915. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, Australia. [2] Meyrick E. 1935. Elachistidae. In: Exotic Microlepidoptera, pp. 600–601. Taylor & Francis, London, UK.[3] Brooker MIH, Slee AV, Connors JR & Duffy SM. 2002. EUCLID: Eucalypts of Southern Australia, (CD ROM) 2nd edn. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria, Australia.[4] Cooke, J. and Edwards, T. ‘The behaviour of scribbly gum moth larvae Ogmograptis sp. Meyrick (Lepidoptera: Bucculatricidae) in the Australian Capital Territory’, Australian Journal of Entomology, vol. 46, 2007, pp 269–75.[5] Day, M. 2012. Deciphering the Message Stick. Meanjin 71(2): 30-38
The Wright Lab (Western Sydney University) 